Get it on your ears - my favorite podcasts around the web

From day one on I was a super bad listener at school. I always needed a visualisation for everything and never memorized facts that were only spoken out.

Because of that I never was interested in the world of podcasts until a colleague of mine brought it up and made me at least try it. I then realized that this might be an opportunity for me to train my brain a little bit on sound-content and I searched for a podcast that wasn’t packed too dense with facts. Over the time I collected a small list of podcasts I listen regularly to. Most of them are security-podcasts, all of them are tech-related.

 

Let’s have a look at what I found:

 

 

     Beers with Talos

The boys from ciscos talos intelligence group invite the listeners to a little hangout and chat about what they currently see around the web. Because of a big portion of humour and personal notes they make it some kind of a security - comedy show.   

 

-   Talos Takes

Talos Takes is another podcast from the cisco talos intelligence group. In contrast to beers with talos, it’s a short 5 – 10 minutes roundup of different topics with different guests every time “for everyone from the c-suite to the frontlines”. I prefer listening to this podcast for example while brushing my teeth or in short breaks between my lessons back when I was in vocational school. 

 

-   The Official Offensive Security Podcast

This is the official podcast from the dudes behind kali linux, the OSCP and so much more.

If you want to know about the latest news and insides about what’s up at offsec, this podcast is your place to go.

 

-   That‘s a Data Problem

…. is the podcast from splunk, for the splunkers. From organizational to technical topics, this podcast informs about what’s up in the splunk universe. For me this is the perfect podcast when I’m traveling for work.

“That’s a Data Problem” can be accessed via the official simplecast-site or the RSS-feed. As I prefer the google podcast app, I added the RSS-feed to google podcasts via the webside. I’m amazed by how smooth this works!  

 

-   #heiseshow

This podcast is for the German speaking people and kind of a tradition. Heise is a German tech-magazine that combines consumer with expert knowledge. I mainly listen to this podcast to know what’s up in the German tec community and to keep up to date with local events. Also, listening to something in my first language is an easy wake-up or “short before sleeping” podcast.

 

-   The WAN show

Most of you will know it… it’s the WAN show by linus and his people from linus tech tips. As this is for various reasons my most loved consumer IT-channel on YouTube, I love listen to the WAN show talks during hang-outs, while waiting for something or someone or when I’m out for a walk. Sometimes, as the WAN show is also recorded with video, a little imagination about what’s happening is required.

 

I hope you may found a show that fits you or maybe you have a recommendation what I should have an ear on?

Leave it in the commends!

Skills that helped me starting out as a Splunk-rookie

  

When I first got my hands on the Splunk cosmos, I quickly noticed that several topics and skills I learned in other fields could be more or less easily transferred to the Splunk environment. So I thought of my top skills and knowledges that help with getting started in Splunk.

1.      Imperative programming with C:

The Search Processing Language, short SPL, is the basic tool to search and filter through the collected data. Learning the SPL-syntax can be a challenging thing if writing commands to a pc is new to you.

But as I learned imperative programming with the C-language at university, I am able to deduce some knowledge like what functions are, how to modify them with options and how the logic behind the search operation works. If a feeling for the logic behind the SPL, that is quite like the C-language, is once evolved, building advanced and big searches become quite easy.

2.       Basic knowledge about statistics and behaviour of numbers:

As in Splunk it’s all about processing and analysing data, a lot of statistics and numbers are generated. Having a basic understanding of how numbers behave and how to correlate values to generate new insights is essential to work in the big data field at all but get’s even more important if you have a tool like Splunk that processes data from nearly any source. A major part of understanding comes with the experience of working with that data but having an imagination of the outcome makes creating the SPL-query much easier.  

3.       Linux-Operating System practical skills:

Splunk is a very heavy software as its main task is to process data. A lightweight operating system underneath can help to improve performance and get more power from your resources for Splunk. That’s why a major percentage of Splunk systems run on a Linux distro. To administer such a system, you’re not getting around configurations on the terminal. Knowing how to execute basic task in Linux bevor starting out on the first Splunk instance made it much easier for me to understand the Splunk related configurations and saved me from some mistakes for sure.

4.       Basic IT-knowledge in Networking, IT-Security and End-User behaviour:

To work with information, you need to know where it originates from. As most often, but not only, system information is processed, it is helpful to know the sources of the data you work with. Just as in 2. this is all about the understanding. The crucial point is to know what source delivers what peace of information and what that information pictures. A basic idea of a wide range of topics in the field makes understanding the details faster as soon as you need to.  

I guess with further processing and learning, I will realize more things that are useful in reference to Splunk. But for now, I leave it here, as my next step is just the power user certification.